Silhouette Dog Portrait + Yarn Wreath

Lately I’ve been doing a few crafting projects to spruce up the house… I wanted to post two that were both a success! I know, I know, yesterday a cooking post, today a crafting post. No, I’m not pregnant. The first one is the Silhouette Dog Portrait. I made this for our gallery wall because he does have an interesting side view, aka his ears are HUGE. :) I thought it would be nicer to keep than just a ton of pictures of him. Our gallery wall is still a work in progress and hopefully we can hang up the pictures soon and I can share more of our house!

So I took a side shot of George and then printed it out on regular white 8×11 paper. I made sure the photo was ‘fill whole frame’ so it printed out on the sheet as a huge photo.

Once on the white paper, I got some black construction paper from Michaels with a coupon. I cut out his head shot from the white paper and traced it onto the black paper. Then I cut out the black paper and made sure his monster ears fit in the area I had left in the frame it was going in. I made sure to turn the paper over so the pencil marks I had made during tracing wouldn’t show up in the framed portrait.

Then I glued it down onto white paper and put it in the frame!

As you can tell, I used a little more of his neck to make him stand out a little taller from the frame, so his ears wouldn’t get lost on the side of the frame. I also cut it a little larger than I thought I would need just so I could make little adjustments as needed when I was cutting. I was worried his ears wouldn’t look like ears or it wouldn’t look like a dog, but it came out ten times better than I expected! I am really happy with it and it looks great on with the rest of the pictures that will go on the wall. It was SO easy to make and only costs me the frame cost, which I got at Walmart for $5!

Now onto the yarn wreath. I made something a similar but way scaled down for my name cards for Christmas this past year, so I knew this was basically just a much larger version of those. Of course, I found it on pinterest, and here’s the original link, but have seen it all over the place in so many different colors and variations. With B and I being the red white and blue lovers that we are, I knew this would go perfectly on our red door or even in our actual house.

The original one that I found. I knew I would want to add flowers instead of stars, and so I went to my local Joanns and got an elusive straw wreath ( I ALWAYS go there looking for them and they never have them) and navy and white yarn with red fabric flowers to put on the front. I came home, started the voice and started winding the yarn around and around and around the straw wreath. I left the wreath in it’s plastic wrapper to make it easier to keep it all together.

I should have been more diligent with the measurements of each navy and white section, as now I am a little annoyed that they aren’t perfectly lined up, but alas, it is what it is. I started each ‘section’ by hot gluing down the end of the yarn and then you just wrap and wrap and wrap. It took me about 3 hours to do this one. I also realized I think I bought the skinniest yarn available, I’m cheap like that. If you get thicker yarn it will take much less time.

So I kept wrapping the wreath. It did get a little tedious but it got to the point where I got in a routine and I was going to finish it last night if my life depended on it.

Seriously, Blake kept Raelynn? You crazy Blake. Anyways, Finally I got to the end and the wreath was all covered. I can totally see myself making these as gifts. Mothers day? Birthdays? Christmas? You betchya. Then I hot glued the flowers on.

I realized as I was hot gluing the flowers on that their stems were made of plastic which made them melt under the heat of the glue, so I had to be extra careful to take my time and make sure they were affixed on there good. Alas, finally 11:30 I was done! (I usually go to bed around 9:30!) I showed it to B when he got home this morning and told him I wanted it on the front door, but he said we can’t put it out there because it will get to dirty and be ruined. So for now it’s hanging in our house.

So two pretty easy crafts that require next to nothing to do and come out looking pretty professional. Well if you look at the measurements of the different colors on your wreath, it would probably come out better than mine, but now that I’ve done one, I’m excited to do another. Which I also told B this morning and he said, why do we need more than one wreath? :)

These both look AWESOME — It made me laugh when you said, “No, I’m not pregnant”. :) I think the recipe and craft posts are fun. I also completely understand staying up to finish the wreath, and yes I go to bed around 9:30 too.

Aww we don’t mind a little mix with craftiness!! Love reading about your running I’m working my way towards a half :)
Oh and if you do make the wreaths as gifts you can buy foam pipe insulation at lowes or any home improvement store and just cut it then form your circle. It’s so much cheaper:) I found out the hard way lol

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